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WASHINGTON -- British
Airways yesterday canceled flights from London to the capitals of the
United States and Saudi Arabia, the latest in a series of international
flights disrupted over security concerns.

No arrests were immediately
reported in connection with the cancellations, and none have been reported
in more than a dozen flight disruptions dating to six canceled Air France
flights between Paris and Los Angeles on Dec. 24 and 25.

Officials said the decision
to stop yesterday's flight to Washington and today's flight to Riyadh
was prompted by specific "security threats." They said intelligence
and law enforcement officials in Europe, the Mideast, and North America
were joining in a search for potential hijackers, but offered little
other information.

The fact that no arrests
have apparently been made in connection with any of the flights canceled
from Mexico, France, or England has worried some specialists on homeland
security. They said the string of apparent false alarms threatened to
undermine public confidence in the airline system and could diminish
future cooperation from foreign governments.

"It shows that we
still have gaps in both the quality of our raw intelligence and our
ability to process that information into a coherent threat picture,"
said P.J. Crowley, a former National Security Council official who is
now with the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. "There
is a cost to that, which is borne in terms of international cooperation,
in terms of economic impact, and in terms of public support."

Washington has been vigilant
since Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge declared a "high alert"
two weeks ago, citing intelligence that Al Qaeda might be planning to
hijack foreign airlines and crash them into populated areas and high-risk
industrial sites in the United States.

A spokeswoman for the
Department of Homeland Security, Rachael Sunbarger, said yesterday that
the information the United States shared with the British government
involved a specific threat to the Washington-bound flight from London.

"The flight was
canceled again today because of specific information about a potential
threat to that flight," she said. "We shared it with our counterparts
in the British government, and they made the decision to cancel the
flight. It's just an example of us working with our international partners
to share any information that we have."

A spokesman for the British
Embassy in Washington said London would not discuss the security matter.
"All we can really say is that British Airways canceled its Flight
223 based on advice from the British government, but
as usual it's our policy not to comment on the specifics of that advice
or any of the intelligence underpinning it," he said.

Retired Army colonel
David McIntyre, deputy director of the ANSER Institute for Homeland
Security, said he thinks the recent security steps were based on "some
pretty strong evidence," but officials need to offer a better explanation
for their actions or risk undermining public confidence in the terror
alert system.

"We should ask questions,"
McIntyre said. "How much did we know and when did we know it?"

Still, McIntyre added:
"The government is in a terrible dilemma. If nothing happens, then
it appears that they overreacted. If something does happen, they appear
inept and incompetent. The bad news is you never know when you're successful."

James Carafano, a specialist
on homeland security with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think
tank, said the incidents demonstrate why Ridge announced an emergency
change earlier this week to require all foreign airliners to be prepared
to place marshals on international flights bound for the United States.
Once the foreign marshals are in place, security officials will have
one more option for dealing with flights for which ambiguous intelligence
suggests there may be a threat, he said.

The current set of options,
based on what has happened in recent days, includes simply canceling
a flight, escorting it into the airport with fighter jets, or "reverse
screening," wherein a jet taxis to a special terminal after landing
and passengers are scrutinized a second time before being allowed to
leave.

Some travelers affected
by the cancellations yesterday were more understanding than others.

"I am irritated,"
said Deepa Menon, 28, a law student from Washington who was supposed
to be on a canceled British Airways flight. "I am sure there are
reasons, but I do wish we had known what was going on earlier."

But Mike Coppolelli,
39, a Washingtonian now living in London, supported the airline's decision.

"We can't just sit
around and wait for another catastrophe to happen and say, `Oh gosh,
we shouldn't have gone,' " he said. "I feel more comfortable
knowing they've canceled it and something has possibly been averted."

Carafano said one lesson
of the recent disruptions is that the computer-assisted passenger prescreening
system being tested, known as CAPPS II, ought to have more information
included in its databases despite concerns by civil libertarians.

The Wall Street Journal
Europe reported that the cancellation of the Air France flights over
Christmas were prompted by "false positives" in which names
and the countries of origin of passengers on the flight manifest, including
a child, matched those of suspected terrorists. A dozen British Airways
passengers were interrogated at Dulles on New Year's Eve because their
names were similar to those of suspected terrorists on the watch list.

Carafano said that by
including other information about passengers, such as height and weight,
the system could result in fewer hassles for low-risk travelers.

"It's controversial
because people are concerned about civil liberties and privacy, but
to my mind the real problem is [the system] doesn't give enough information,"
he said. "In the intelligence world, they say the easiest way to
find a needle in a haystack is to add more hay."

Crowley said he worries
that recent events could show terrorists a new way to disrupt Western
society: By simply buying a ticket on the Internet and using names known
to be in Western files, they could cause hundreds of thousands of dollars
in economic disruption.

Crowley also said the
recent impact to the airline industry in terms of canceled flights and
other people choosing not to fly could be compared to the broader costs
of maintaining an orange alert for weeks, causing cities and town in
United States to add to police overtime and take other costly security
measures.

"I worry about whether
we have the resources to be able to sustain what we're doing over time,"
he said.

But Carafano said the
economic impact would be far worse should an attack be allowed to happen.

The airline industry
was devastated by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, with several
carriers going bankrupt despite a $15 billion aid package passed by
Congress shortly after the attacks.

"My guess is the
economic impact of this is pretty marginal compared to a 9/11,"
he said.

(In
accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving
the included information for research and educational purposes.)

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